Marvel made $1.5 billion on The Avengers, plus another $200-500 million every time they make a movie about a sub-Avenger (unless its Iron Man, who’s good for another billion). But before Marvel started producing movies themselves, a couple other studios licensed the rights to their characters, Fox for X-Men/Wolverine, and Sony with Spider-Man. Basically, everyone’s trying to duplicate The Avengers, and now Sony is making it official, trying to create a giant tie-in franchise out of Spider-Man. They’ve announced that they’re hiring a team of writers to form a “brain trust,” to create a “franchise brain to expand the universe for the brand and to develop a continuous tone and thread throughout the films.”

…Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, Ed Solomon, and Drew Goddard [will] collaborate on overseeing the developing story over several films that will be produced by Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach.

The five writers, along with the two producers and Marc Webb, have formed a franchise brain trust to expand the universe for the brand and to develop a continuous tone and thread throughout the films. Under the deals, the studio announced that Kurtzman & Orci & Pinkner are writing the screenplay for The Amazing Spider Man 3, which the studio hopes Webb will return to direct; the film will go into production next fall for release on June 10, 2016.

In addition, the team will build on the cinematic foundation laid by Webb, Arad, and Tolmach in the first two movies. They will expand the franchise as Kurtzman & Orci & Solomon will write the screenplay for Venom, which Kurtzman will direct; also, Goddard will write, with an eye to direct, The Sinister Six, focusing on the villains in the franchise. Hannah Minghella and Rachel O’Connor will oversee the development and production of these films for the studio. [press release]

The major difference between Marvel and Sony here seems to be that whereas The Avengers had Joss Whedon, who’s known for his intense personal attachment to his projects, sometimes to his detriment, Kurtzman and Orci are guys occasional capable of good work (the first Abrams Star Trek, Mission Impossible 3), but mostly known for being involved in every third movie that comes out, most of them crap (hell, they even produced The Proposal – as well as Ender’s Game, Now You See Me…).

Basically, when a massive, faceless corporation announces that it’s going to expand the comic book universe it has the rights to, because that’s the most logical, algorithm-driven decision with the best chance of maximizing profits, they usually want to tape a human face to the end of that tentacle, a la Joss Whedon for Marvel, or Chris Nolan and David S. Goyer for Warner Bros, who people feel comfortable giving their money to. Kurtzman and Orci just seem like guys attached to a million projects with no connection between them other than money. The most interesting thing about Orci was his wackadoo conspiracy nut Twitter account, and he deleted that.

Roberto Orci has gone on rants about 9/11 and the Boston bombings being inside jobs (the latter made during the crisis) and told Star Trek fans on their own website to go “fuck themselves” for daring to criticize his writing.

Also, they’re are just horrible, terrible hacks.

I liked Fringe too and Sleepy Hollow is delightfully stupid, but yes, we *should* hate them. Very, VERY much.

Nah, they can be as crazy as they want. Fringe became one of my all time favorite shows, I love the shit out of Iron Man 3 and Abrams’ Star Trek, etc. Even if they write crap from time to time I’m at the very least intrigued when they write something.

I couldn’t care less what they do outside of their work, and telling Star Trek fans who whine about the new movies to “go fuck themselves” is something I do any chance I get so good on him for that.

Sony seems intent on pimping out poor, aging Spider-Man out into the streets. Eyeliner running down his face, lipstick smeared all over his face, runs in his stockings, begging moviegoers if they want a date until the day he’s found dead behind a dumpster. Needle jutting out of his arm.

You know, this could be a whole lot worse. I mean, these things are already so bloated at this point (too many characters, not enough development, at least 20 minutes too long) that imagine if one studio had the rights to everything Marvel. There’s no way in hell they’d be able to avoid the temptation to cram all of the Avengers, X-Men, and Spider-verse into one huge travesty of a movie.

At least this way we get 3 separate streams of slightly less crappy stuff.

(To be truthful, I happen to enjoy all three of these movie universes and would probably even hand over my monies for something that includes all three, but they are what they are – fun, if you’re into that kind of thing, shitty wastes of time if you aren’t. I guess what I’m trying to say is I’m happy we don’t get a 3 hour movie where every character gets only 4 minutes of screen time.)

I’m happy to report to all Filmdrunkards that while no actual psychiatrists have gone missing, Gabriel Byrne is feared dead and my faith in Feklhr’s grip on reality has been shattered, which is tonights true tragedy